


A Night in D.C.

by The Wicked Symphony (SymphonyWizard)



Series: Of Shields and Widow’s Bites [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Dates, Fluff, I rewatched CATWS, Light Angst, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve still doesn't know a bloody thing about women, and fell instantly in love with this pairing, so he's given a little push
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-01 12:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SymphonyWizard/pseuds/The%20Wicked%20Symphony
Summary: Steve is in love with Natasha and needs a little encouragement to follow his heart.  Can he catch her before she leaves?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phoebe_Snow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoebe_Snow/gifts), [AutonomicRogue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutonomicRogue/gifts), [Squid_Ink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squid_Ink/gifts).



“You’re in love with her, Steve.”

Steve, who was gazing out the window absentmindedly, snaps back to reality.  His eyes turn to the old woman sitting in the overstuffed armchair next to him. 

He doesn’t understand how she can be in a robe with a hand-stitched quilt on her lap.  The room has a stale smell to it, like the hospital his mother worked as a nurse. Molded into that staleness is a lingering warmth that the air conditioner has failed to counteract.  Plus, he hasn’t taken off his brown leather jacket, so that could be a contributing factor to how his shirt is sticking to his skin.

“Excuse me?”

Peggy laughed softly.  Steve has to fight back his building emotion at the weak sound of it.  As far as his memory is concerned, it was only a couple of years ago that that laugh was more lively and youthful.

“Oh, Steve, you are in love with her,” she repeats emphatically.

Steve smiles sheepishly as comprehension dawns on him.  “Um, yeah, I guess so.  I’m still a bit annoyed that she had been living across the hall from me for months and…”

“Oh shut up!” snaps the old woman so suddenly that Steve freezes.  Suddenly he feels like a ninety-pound asthmatic at basic training, listening to her bark orders at him as he fought to keep from letting his frailty get the better of him.  “Did seventy years on ice preserve your stupidity as well as your looks?”

Steve glares at her.

Peggy rolls her eyes.  “You’re so thick.  I’m not talking about Sharon; I’m talking about Natasha.”

Steve frowns.  “I’m…not…uh…”

“Oh, Steve, why do you deny what is in your heart?” asks Peggy tiredly.  “Have I not listened to you talk about this woman constantly?  Have I not seen your eyes light up like a stormy ocean whenever you mention her name?  Have I not listened for the past ten minutes as you whined about her leaving Washington?  For the third time, you are in love with Natasha Romanoff!”

Steve is dumbfounded.  Sure, he and Natasha get along.  Even before they were assigned as partners for S.H.I.E.L.D., they quickly formed a solid relationship.  He still smiles when he thinks about how well they worked together during the Battle of New York.  Why does it give him chills every time he thinks of her bouncing off his shield?

In the past several months of being partners, they quickly started spending time away from the job.  They got drinks together (she still whines about his inability to get drunk); they have had pizza nights; she’s taken it upon herself to help him cross a bunch of things off his list of things to catch up on; in the last several days, they have had some truly bonding moments. 

He trusts Natasha Romanoff with his life.

He studies Peggy thoughtfully.  She may be an old woman, but he’s afraid of testing her.  It’s best not make her repeat herself a fourth time.  But he needs to be honest. 

“I’m…just not sure she’s my type,” he confesses.  “Even if she was, I’m probably not her type.”

Peggy rolls her eyes.  “Not your type?  Her hair is red, she’s foreign, she can kick your ass, she’s a warrior in her own right, she’s intelligent...do I need to go on?”

Steve says nothing. 

Peggy sighs.  “I’ve lived a long life.  I married and had beautiful children and grandchildren.  If this be my last request in this life, let it be this.  Put away the shield for fifteen minutes.  Live your life.  Haven’t you waited long enough?  You care for this woman.  Go after her.  And who knows?  She may be a better woman for you than I could ever have been seventy years ago.” 

Steve would like to say that that’s debatable.  He wants to scold Peggy for selling herself short.  He can’t do any of that, because he can’t bring himself to insult Natasha.  Not even in a more or less harmless way like this.

“Well since you asked so nicely,” he teases. 

Eventually, Peggy’s eyes turn glassy.  Steve sighs heavily.  When she seems to appear lucid again, he suppresses his grief as best he can. 

“Steve?” she gasps.  “You came back.  It’s been so long.”

Steve smiles tearfully as he rises to his feet.  “Of course I did.”  He reaches out and touches Peggy’s cheek.  She closes her eyes and cups his hand with one of her own.  It breaks his heart feeling just how small and frail her hand is.  Not long ago, as his memory is concerned, Peggy had such beautiful hands.  They were always delicate, but he remembers the strength as well as the callousness of them.

They were hands that were as desirable as the rest of her, but were also another sign that she was by no means a weak woman.  

“I have to go now, but I’ll come back.  You still owe me a dance, woman,” he teases brokenly.

“Yes, I guess I do,” agrees Peggy, thoughtfully.  “Eight o’ clock on the dot at Asher’s; don’t be late.”

Steve smiles sadly.  Asher’s was a jazz club in Brooklyn.  It’s been closed since 1974.  “I’ll be there.”  He would have loved to dance with Peggy.  She’s too weak to stand anymore.

There is a woman that Steve wants to dance with.  He just hopes that she’s still in town.

 

***

 

Natasha takes an inventory of everything.  She doesn’t have many possessions.  The longest that she has spent anywhere at any given time was ten months.  She’s only been here in this I Street northwest apartment, where she can walk to places like the U.S. Capital for seven months. 

Truth be told, she doesn’t want to leave.  She’s come to view this place a home.  Honestly, her list of friends is very small, but there’s only one that she can think about. 

She moved to Washington to be near her partner, Steve Rogers.  Eight months ago, she never would have thought that they would become friends.  With him, she doesn’t feel like a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, nor a femme fatale who used physical intimacy as a means to an end.  She doesn’t feel like a monster that her best friend, Clint, was sent to kill.  She doesn’t know what she feels around him.  It’s a feeling that only intensified when he told her that he trusted her with his life.

When he brushed off her words about owing him, it made her feel something she doesn’t remember ever feeling in her prolonged life. 

There were so many unspoken words in that kiss on the cheek she gave him in the cemetery. 

Every bone in body is screaming at her to unpack her two suitcases and backpack.  Unfortunately, all her covers are blown.  Already, she’s getting hate mail and even a few death threats.

“K.G.B. whore, bitch in a black cat suit, murderer, fake Avenger,” Natasha repeats listlessly.  She already knows what Steve would say.  After scolding her for even reading some of the letters in the first place, indulging herself with the castigation of people she doesn’t even know, he would have reminded her that it doesn’t matter what kind of woman she was.  What matters is the kind of woman she is willing to be. 

What kind of woman is that?  A superhero?  A woman with an extended lifespan due to the painful enhancements she endured in the Red Room?  Loki was right.  Her record is gushing red.  There’s so much red that she will never be able to scrub it off. 

Her eyes drift to the gun on her mattress.  Would it really be so bad if she stuck that weapon in her mouth?  Wouldn’t the world be a better place without the Black Widow?  Not far off, she sees the photographs on her nightstand.  As fate would have it, each is a moment with Steve.

Her personal favorite is her on Steve’s back with her arms around his neck in a headlock.  Both of them had goofy looks and were dressed as Black Widow and Captain America respectively.  It was Fourth of July and she had talked him into joining her in a photo booth.  She still laughs as she remembers leaning against the booth as it took Steve all of five minutes to accept that his shield wasn’t going to fit in the booth with them. 

Another photo is a selfie she took when she went for an evening walk with Steve along the Potomac.  Given their height differences, she couldn’t reach high enough to get a picture of them both from above.  Steve had lifted her by the waist to help her get a better picture. 

Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock at her door.  Instinctively, she grabs her gun and leaves the bedroom, heading towards her door.  Clicking the safety off, she presses herself next to the door.  Given her thoughts over the last few hours, the coldness of her gun feels like a harsh representation of the kind of killer she can be.

“Nat, are you there?” it’s Steve.  She relaxes, clicking the safety on her gun back on. 

“Listen, Nat, I…uh…I…” Steve stammers.  “Your doorman said you were still here, thank God.  I wanted…I wanted to see you before you disappeared.  You don’t have to tell me where you’re going, but if I let you leave without you hearing this, I won’t forgive myself.”

Natasha frowns, turning slightly towards the door.  Her heart flutters in anticipation of whatever Steve has to say.

“At Sam’s house, you told me that you owed me and I told you that you didn’t,” Steve explains.  “Well, maybe I lied.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“I care about you, Natasha Romanoff,” Steve confesses tenderly.

Natasha’s breath hitches in her throat and she finds herself sinking to her knees.  That feeling has returned.

“I’ll admit, there’s a lot I don’t know about you,” explains Steve.  “You can’t keep running from your past.  You’re compromised, yes, but why keep running?” 

Natasha could be wrong, but she thinks she hears a trace of sadness in Steve’s voice.  She wants to open her door and wrap him in her arms, but she’s frozen. 

“I never told anybody this, not even Bucky, but after my mother died, I wanted to run,” says Steve.  “I wanted to go anywhere that wasn’t Brooklyn.  I almost did.  It was Bucky who helped me through my grief.  I don’t know if this relates to you in any way.  I know next to nothing of the woman you were before I met you, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’d love to know more about that woman.

“Call yourself whatever you want, but I don’t care about the Black Widow.  I don’t care about what horrible things that you’ve done.  I’ve done horrible things.  For months I didn’t sleep well because of some of the things I did in the war.  Every day, I had to remind myself I was still a human being.  Whatever you might think, you’ve proven to me that you are still a human being as well.  You’re going to have to try really hard to convince me otherwise.”

A smile spreads across Natasha’s lips.  It’s probably one of the sweetest things anyone has ever said to her.  Sadly, he’s right.  She’s not sure if she is more human than monster.

“If I can’t convince you to stay in D.C., can I at least convince you to go to dinner with me?” asks Steve.

Natasha closes her eyes.  She rises to her feet and reaches out for the door handle.  She hesitates.  What if she opens the door and the spell is broken? 

She hears Steve sigh heavily.  “Well, safe travels, Nat.”  He’s walking away. 

 _Oh, shit_.  She opens her door violently and steps out of her apartment.  “Stop right there, Rogers!” she snaps. 

Steve stops immediately.  He doesn’t turn around though.  She closes some of the distance between them. 

“I care about you too, Steve,” Natasha confesses.  “Truth is I am scared.  Now everyone knows about the things I’ve done.  I’m scared that you’ll look at me differently if you were to know about what I had to do in and out of the Red Room.  I love the way you look at me.  I love the way I can just be…Natasha around you.  I don’t want to lose that.”

Steve turns around and Natasha is instantly trapped by those baby blues.  “So why run off to God-knows-where?”

Natasha shakes her head.  “I don’t know.”

“Then stay,” Steve says, taking her hand in his.  “Stay with me,” he whispers. 

Natasha raises her eyebrows, but her skin is tingling with smiles.  “You’re a real sap, you know that?”

Steve smirks.  “And you are a royal pain in my ass.”

Natasha shrugs with a smug smile.  “You can’t blame a woman for trying.”

Steve laughs and wraps his arms around her.  Natasha can’t help but hug him back.  They remain that way for several moments, ignoring one of her neighbors as he steps out of his apartment. 

“So, you mentioned something about dinner?” asks Natasha.

Steve breaks away just enough to lock eyes with her.  “If I leave now and come back at seven, what will I see?”

Natasha lifts an eyebrow with a suggestive smile.  “I guess you’ll just have to take a leap of faith, soldier.”

Steve mirrors her smile.  “Then I will come back at seven.”  He bends down and plants a kiss on her cheek.  “You kissed me on the cheek; I thought I’d return the favor.”  He turns away again and heads for the elevator, leaving a stunned Natasha behind with fire in her chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my debut in the MCU. Any feedback/advice/constructive criticism is welcome.


	2. Chapter Two

Steve shifts his weight from one foot to the other as the elevator ascends to Natasha’s floor.  One hand clutches a bouquet of white roses.  He remembers one of their conversations some time ago about her not liking red roses.  Technically, she didn’t tell him.  It was just something that came up as part of the conversation.  The other hand, Steve keeps at his side, raising it every so often to adjust his black tie.  His hair is slicked sideways and his tux is fresh out of a tailor shop on T Street Northwest that has been in business since 1939.

Steve was surprised he could afford it.  Between his salary working for S.H.I.E.L.D. and payment from working as an Avenger, his earnings are modestly high.  In fact, if S.H.I.E.L.D. was still operating, he could easily live in one of the more affluent neighborhoods of Washington.  He chose his apartment not because of its location and less so because it was within his price range, but because it was one of the older ones.  It gave him a semblance of the time period that he grew up in. 

He doesn’t even own a television set.  He found his radio and record player in a dusty old pawn shop.  Some modern things that he has indulged himself with are his microwave (he’s particularly fond of microwave popcorn, a pleasure that only Natasha knows) and the gas stove that came with his apartment.  Once or twice when parts of the city suffered blackouts due to severe weather, Natasha would come by. 

She has an electric stove and her solution to a hot meal would be coming over to his apartment.  She’s a much better cook than he is.  He’s not a horrible cook—Natasha’s words—but he cooks much the way he would have cooked seventy years ago.  He does enjoy Natasha’s Russian cuisine. 

Now that he thinks of it, they have had plenty of “dates” without calling them dates.  He wants to show her a good time while also crossing Indian food off his list.  He made a last-minute reservation at Rasika on D Street Northwest, just a couple of blocks east from FBI headquarters.  Actually, he made no reservation.  Against his protests, he was given a reservation purely because he’s Captain America. 

As the elevator reaches his destination, he smiles as he realizes something unique about Natasha.  Actually, there are quite a few things unique about Natasha Romanoff and Steve adores each of them, even the more annoying ones.  The one that he finds himself smiling about at this very moment is that, despite all their banter, she understands his dislike for people giving him free passes because of who he is.

However, being Captain America is not going to get him to kiss the President’s ass.  He could be set for life, given his own island in the Caribbean, and even a life’s supply of free microwave popcorn, but none of that is going to get him to let anyone parade him around.  Ever since he came out of the ice, he has even turned down all offers to join Fourth of July parades. 

He’s perfectly content to celebrate his birthday quietly, sharing a cake with some of the people he’s come to call his friends.  Now that he thinks of it, he would be happy to spend his next birthday in a few months with Natasha. 

“Why don’t you grow a pair and get out of the elevator.”

Steve’s thoughts come to an abrupt halt and turns towards the speaker.  His eyes fall on a middle-aged woman with a couple of grocery sacks in her arms. 

“Excuse me?” he asks.

“You’re that boy that Natasha keeps talking about, aren’t you?” asks the woman.  She looks him over suggestively.  “Well, you’re definitely pretty.  I’d hate to see what would happen to you if you broke her heart.”

Steve is about to ask if that’s a threat, but then she rears up and shoves him out of the elevator with her foot just as the doors close.  “I guess Nat can take comfort knowing that at least one of her neighbors is looking out for her,” he mutters. 

He turns in the direction of her apartment and takes a deep breath.  He walks towards her apartment.  As he approaches it, he’s left with the sudden dread that she might not even be there at all.  She didn’t exactly tell him that she would be there.  All she said was to take a leap of faith. 

More like, Steve is jumping from thirty thousand feet without a parachute.  He’s jumped out of a plane without a parachute, but not at that height.  It’s like jumping from a plane at cruising altitude, hoping he lands on an invisible air mattress like the one they use in film production. 

He hopes he lands on that air mattress as he reaches Natasha’s door.  Clearing his throat, he reaches out and knocks.  He hears some movement from the other side and he immediately straightens up.  Almost as quickly, the door swings open. 

Steve forgets how to breathe. 

He has seen Natasha Romanoff in a dress before.  She wore a dress when she made him accompany her to some presidential gala that requested (more like demanded) the presence of the Avengers.

This is nothing like that black cocktail dress.  It definitely made him stare for far too long, but this? 

The dress is a deep shade of green, bringing out the greenness of her eyes.  Starting from the bottom and working his way up, the knee-length skirt is a thinly layered curtain of silk and glitter.  The skirt ends at the waist with a black belt that Steve is sure has a few hidden gadgets.  Above that is a black bodice of silk and ruffles.  The dress leaves little to the imagination about the shape of her breasts without the neckline being daringly low.  It’s low enough that he can see the rise and fall of her breasts with each breath.  Topping off the dress are wide, lazy straps of intricately detailed lace. 

Finally, he notices her hair.  In the past few months, as Natasha grew her hair out, her carefully straightened locks have been all but devoid of decoration.  This evening, her hair is in a low bun behind her left ear, save for a few loose strands in her face. 

He’s seriously tempted to reach out and tuck those strands behind her ear.  Speaking of her ears, long silvery chandeliers dangle from long chains.

Who knew the Black Widow could clean herself up so nicely?

“Hey, soldier,” greets Natasha, smiling up at him.  She quirks an eyebrow.  “I guess you took a leap of faith after all.”      

Steve collects himself and clears his throat.  “I told you I was planning on taking you to dinner,” he quips.  “You could have been wearing pajamas and I still would have taken you out.  The fact that you decided to put on a gorgeous dress just makes it all the better.”  He fights the urge to frown.  The compliment came out of nowhere.  Did he overstep his bounds?

Natasha blushes all of the sudden, staring down at her feet as her cheeks turn as red as her hair.   He waits a moment as she recollects herself.  “Well, this morning some handsome guy showed up on my doorstep and convinced me to stay in town.  He’s way out of time, more of a World War Two veteran, yet he still has his looks.  I even tried to get him to ask out a lady or two, but he always found a reason to stomp on my efforts.” 

The way she pouts at that last comment, Steve feels incredibly guilty.  She did try to get him to ask out a number of women.  Each of them were quite attractive, even the girl with the tongue-piercing, but something was missing in each of them.  “Well, I don’t know if I know this guy, but I would guess, and please forgive me if I’m overstepping my bounds, that he knew all along who he wanted to ask out.  He just didn’t have the guts to admit it.  Or maybe he’s just a big, dumb blonde.”

Natasha’s reaction is strange.  Her eyes shine Central Park in the spring at his implications, but then that adorable husky laugh of hers escapes her throat.

Steve frowns.  “Are you okay?”

Natasha presses a hand to her chest as she tries to regain control of herself.  “I’m sorry, I just never thought that you of all people would say ‘dumb blonde’.  I mean, you are a dumb blonde, but I never thought I’d hear _you_ say it.”

Steve frowns at the redhead.  “I’d like to think that I’m not completely dumb in all respects, thank you very much.”

Natasha raises an eyebrow.  “That remains to be seen, Cap.”  She finally notices the roses.  “Are those for me?” she teases.

“You once said that red roses are too cliché,” explains Steve, smiling proudly as she narrows her eyes at him.  “But I still thought that you deserved some flowers.”

Natasha delicately takes the roses from him and inhales softly.  “I’ll go put these in water.”  She disappears behind her door again and Steve waits patiently.  A couple of minutes later Natasha reappears with a handbag and she wraps an arm around the crook of his elbow.  

“So, are you willing to show a lady a good time?” she teases, flashing him a toothy smile.

Steve smiles and stares at her handbag suspiciously.  “There’s a gun in that handbag, isn’t there?”

Natasha’s smile turns a little more suggestive.  “No, the gun is attached to my hip.  My handbag just has a knife.”  She shrugs.  “Some women carry pepper spray.”

 _But none of them are the Black Widow_ , thinks Steve.  All he wants to do is show that there is indeed a desirable woman underneath that black suit.  Natasha Romanoff most of all.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up taking more than two chapters to tell, but I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter.


	3. Chapter Three

Natasha might have put up the cheekier side of her personality when she opened her door, but truth be told, she’s nervous.  This is far from her first outing with anyone, but she can’t remember the last time she had a _date_.  As far as her memory is concerned, her outings have usually been a means to an end, as have been the rest of her motives. 

A number of her dates over the decades have ended with her killing her dates, most of them being political enemies of the Soviet Union.  She was that spy that even the K.G.B. feared.  Her handler and somewhat lover, Ivan, began to fear her at one point.  In her opinion, they feared each other. 

Natasha didn’t have a normal upbringing.  She didn’t have friends and her family died when she was so young that all she can remember of them is their faces.  As she became a teenager, she wasn’t fawning over handsome boys fighting for Mother Russia.  She didn’t have a motherly role model to teach her how to be a good Soviet young lady.  Steve has told her before that he didn’t have an easy childhood, being small and frail while his mother was away from home a lot, but Natasha envies him. 

She was a small girl, _is_ a small woman, but she would have chosen being a sickly girl from Brooklyn over being a Red Room trainee from Stalingrad any time. 

Natasha might have a couple of weapons for protection out of pure habit, but as far as she’s concerned, this is the first date she had ever been on.  Even dinner with Clint and his family don’t really seem to count.  She loves Laura and her children, having been dubbed “Aunt Nat” by them, but sometimes she felt like a third wheel.  Laura used to jokingly wonder when she would bring a handsome guy to visit. 

Steve could very well be that handsome guy, but she’s not sure if Clint is ready to expose what is perhaps his most closely guarded secret to him.  She has seen how he is with children.  Once or twice, someone who recognized him as Captain America would come up to him for an autograph or a picture.

Natasha wishes people would be more respectful towards Steve.  He didn’t choose to wear all-American colors.  He could easily have been a super-soldier without wearing the red, white, and blue.  Yet he became a cultural icon before he actually got to be a soldier. 

Steve is a human being.  He wears the outfit he wears, uses a shield with the stars and stripes on it out of habit, but Natasha knows he would be content to have been wearing Army greens.  Unless he opted for the featureless metal look, his shield would look weird in Army camouflage.

As she and Steve head down the elevator with her hand wrapped around the crook of his arm, there is something that makes her wonder.  Would he be flattered if she told him about the pang of jealousy she gets whenever a young lady, whether she be an intern at the Triskelion, or a random girl on the street in DC gives him a flirtatious smile?  Would he scold her for feeling the urge to give the girl a taste of her Widow’s Bites, or something a little less harmful? 

She’s made grown men wet themselves with a simple raised eyebrow or a sideways glance. 

Steve sure has a tendency to make her feel more like a woman and less like a loathsome spy. 

The elevator reaches ground level and they exit it side by side.  Natasha steals a glance towards her doorman, who offers her an approving smile upon seeing the man she’s attached to.  Her doorman is one of the few people in her life outside of S.H.I.E.L.D. that still treats her like a human being.  She has to resist the temptation to ask for his candy jar. 

He always keeps _Alenka_ chocolates just for her.

“So where is America’s Golden Boy taking an assassin like me for dinner?” asks Natasha with a tempting grin. 

“ _I was going through my list and I saw that I still haven’t tried Indian food_ ,” replies Steve.

Natasha stops just as they reach the door.  “Since when do you speak Russian?”

Steve shrugs.  “Back in the war, my unit worked with a few Soviets during a joint operation in taking down a number of Hydra bases on the Eastern Front.  I already picked up on French quite easily, so why not learn a few things from the Russians?”

Natasha nods her approval.  “ _Well, Comrade Steve, your pronunciation is lousy, but there’s always room for improvement._ ”

“ _Are you offering to tutor me_?” queries Steve, raising his eyebrows.

“ _Play your cards right_ ,” purrs Natasha with a wink as they step out onto the street.

Steve smiles at her tempting tone.  “In my defense, your pronunciation is a bit off as well—ow!  Watch the heels!”

Natasha just smiles.  “I’ve spent years pretending that English is my first language.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve had an opportunity to speak my native tongue in a casual situation.”

“Well, then let me be someone that you can speak Russian to whenever you want,” offers Steve.

Natasha’s heart flutters at the offer.  “First I’m going to have to quiz you, see just how fluent you actually are.”

They start walking towards the restaurant.  It’s a lovely evening out and Rasika is only a fifteen-minute walk from where they are.  “You know for the record, your accent does slip out a bit sometimes.  So, may I ask you a personal question?”

“ _Da_ ,” replies Natasha as they round a corner onto Fifth Street.   

“Do you consider your American accent a façade, or has it become natural?”

 _Way to go with that question_ , Natasha thinks.  She takes a moment before answering.  “I spent a very long time learning to pretend I was American.  When I introduced myself to Stark, I was Natalie Rushman.  Obviously, my accent eventually became fluent and the opportunities to speak Russian, much less sound Russian, became fewer and farther between.  So I would say that what started out as a façade eventually turned into a reality.”

“I wish I could have met you back in the forties, I’m sure you would have had a lovely Russian accent,” blurts out Steve.

Natasha scoffs as they pass Chinatown.  She tries to ignore some of the glances pointed her way.  They immediately recoil in fear as she meets their eyes.  All they see is a turncoat assassin who was pretty much blackmailed into trading the K.G.B. for S.H.I.E.L.D.  Had she known then just how compromised the latter was…she might have just settled for death. 

Then again, had she died, she never would have met Steve. 

“It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t meet me back then,” she tells him.  “First of all, I am ten years your junior, and also one of the primary objectives of the Red Room was to challenge you.  You could call it one of the first acts of one-upmanship between the Americans and the Soviets, but the Soviets wanted something similar, perhaps better than America’s super soldier.  Meeting me then, as per my training, I likely would have killed you.”

“And I would have been too conflicted about killing a teenage girl,” sums up Steve. 

“That’s what separated Dr. Erskine’s vision and what the Red Room had in mind,” says Natasha.  “He wanted a good man, not a good soldier.  The Red Room wanted the worst of the worst.  The things I had to do to become the best…” she trails off as her mind dredges up awful memories she thought she had forgotten about. 

Steve lays his free hand on top of hers as they walk down the street.  “Hey, if it’s too painful to talk about, we can talk about something else.”

Natasha nods numbly.  He does want to open up to him about what she went through in the Red Room, and she knows he won’t judge her, but she’s not sure if she can face it.  Plus they are on a crowded street in the middle of Washington D.C. undoubtedly full of people who would like to hurt her. 

“I guess it’s my turn to ask _you_ a personal question,” she says, changing the subject. 

“Ask away, Nat,” invites Steve. 

“What was your mother like?” asks Natasha.

A glassy smile spreads across Steve’s beautiful features.  “She was a beautiful woman.  In fact, I have a small picture of her here.”  Natasha frees his arm and he reaches into his inside pocket.  His hand reemerges with his wallet.  He opens it and pulls out a small photograph, holding it out to Natasha.

She takes the old photograph delicately and looks at it thoughtfully.  In the photo is the black and white face of a blonde woman with much of the same sharp feature as Steve.  Her eyes look like a darker shade than Steve’s, so his eyes must be his father’s.

“That’s Sarah Rogers,” explains Steve, his voice sounding far away.  “When I came out of the ice, my belongings from Brooklyn were placed in a government storage facility.  I haven’t been able to access any of it.  That photo was a favor from Fury.”

“She’s beautiful,” Natasha expresses sincerely. 

“She was,” agrees Steve.  “She was also incredibly selfless, kind, and never once raised her voice.  She worked long hours in a T.B. ward, but she always came home with my favorite chocolates whenever she was unable to come home when scheduled to.”  He laughs mirthlessly and Natasha notices a certain amount of suppressed emotion she never noticed before.  Apparently he has his own demons as well.  “It’s probably one of the worst ironies of my life.  My mother worked in a T.B. ward and she died of tuberculosis.  Didn’t matter how much I tried to take care of her, she just got worse and worse.

“I fall asleep for seventy years and I wake up to find all these diseases I grew up, even the flu can be prevented by perfected antibiotics.”  He breathes hard.  “For people like Howard Stark, it was a day worth celebrating when I was successfully turned into…this.  For me, there was no one I could celebrate with.  My mother was dead, Bucky was in Europe, and Dr. Erskine had been killed the same day as my treatment.”

“What about Peggy Carter?” asks Natasha, handing him back the photograph.

Steve scoffs.  “You know, she had other stuff to do.  She may have been the one to remind me that I was meant for more than propaganda, but she could only stare at me the same as every other woman.  She could have been playing hard to get, but she wasn’t always the friend I needed.”

Natasha sighs heavily as she wraps her arm around his again.  He’s spent a long time fighting for his chance to serve and when he finally got his chance, he still had to prove himself.  She has read his files and it still baffles her how he was nearly court-marshaled the first time that he actually saw combat.

A period of silence follows between them as they reach the end of the road.  Fifth Street ends in a large intersection between Fifth, D Street, and Indiana Avenue.  Directly in front of them is the massive building that houses the Moultrie Courthouse, Superior Court of D.C., and the Marriage License Bureau a little more to the west. 

Natasha has been curious about Steve’s opinion of the capital.  He grew up in Brooklyn.  It’s another city with much higher buildings.  In Washington D.C., the height limits are very strict.  To Steve, this place must feel very small compared to where he grew up.  Still, the sun is down and the place is alit with color.  This neighborhood doesn’t feature any gimmicks or outdoor television screens, but one of the things she personally enjoys is the lights that illuminate historical buildings such as the Law Enforcement museum they passed and the Superior Court.

Since the events of the helicarriers destroying each other, tourism in Washington has increased ten percent.  It’s a decision that still haunts Natasha, but it needed to be done.  Sadly, a number of people were injured or killed.  What’s left of the three helicarriers, one of which obliterated a part Route 56 across the Potomac, the second destroying the Triskelion, and the third sitting halfway out of the river having done little damage to anything, are being taken care of by cleanup crews working around the clock. 

Among those injured was Brock Rumlow.  Last Natasha heard he escaped the hospital he was in and has fallen off the grid.  She fears he may eventually come back for blood.

What she does know is that the Project Insight helicarriers is one of the things that has General Ross spewing his desire for more control of the Avengers.  He’s using it as part of his campaign for Secretary of State.  It was barely an Avengers operation.  And wasn’t General Ross the man who tried to have Bruce Banner killed?

Natasha has come to consider Bruce a close friend and he has more reasons than most to distrust, even resent the government.  When she was sent to recruit him for the Avengers initiative, she felt bad about bringing backup.  It wasn’t exactly a good move if Fury was trying to establish a sense of trust. 

Between her and Steve, they might be one of only a handful of people that see Bruce as a person and not just some freak that turns into a big, green monster when angry.  She thinks it’s possible that he’s been developing feelings for her as a result of her treating him as an equal. 

It truly makes Natasha smile to see someone having feelings for her.  If only she reciprocated them.  Bruce is a friend and she’s been working with him to come up with some sort of “lullaby” for keeping the Hulk at bay, but she there are no fireworks between them.  There are ways that she connects with him that differ from Clint or Steve, and she loves that quality, but it’s not enough for her to return his feelings. 

Would it be safe for her to suggest that he reconnect with Betty Ross?  She has no problem putting herself between Bruce following his heart and General Ross if she has to.  Then again, Bruce probably doesn’t want her fighting his battles for him.  She can still be a friend and tell General Ross to screw himself, though.

She doesn’t want to say so for fear of insulting Steve’s efforts, but as they pass a Subway on the corner, she thinks she would have been satisfied with a sub sandwich.  She is horribly overdressed for a sandwich joint, and Subway isn’t her first choice, but she does like simple things. 

They arrive at Rasika and considering the heels she is wearing, Natasha is happy they are here. 

“After you, ma’am,” says Steve, stepping forward and opening one of the double glass doors for her. 

Natasha giggles.  “ _You’re such a gentleman_ ,” she teases in Russian as she steps through the glass doors.  They soon come face to face with the receptionist.  She is far from surprised at the man’s reaction upon seeing her.  The guy looks about middle-aged and as she locks eyes with him, within seconds he breaks out into a sweat. 

She fights the urge to roll her eyes.  Anyone with a T.V., social media account, or a subscription to the _Washington Post_ knows about her Supreme Court hearing.  They also know about all the information she leaked to the internet.  This is why she wanted to go off the grid. 

She loves how Steve treats her, but can it be enough to make her feel safe in city like this?

“Rogers, checking in for a seven-thirty reservation,” Steve says, walking up to the receptionist. 

It takes a moment for the receptionist to find his voice, let alone tear his gaze from Natasha.  “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I’ll have to cancel your reservation.”

“Excuse me?” asks Steve, flabbergasted.  “On what grounds?”

“We…we won’t…” his eyes return to Natasha and she lets out a forlorn sigh. 

“I understand," she says without emotion.  "come on, Steve we’ll find somewhere else to eat.”

“No, I made a reservation and unless you want to throw me out, we are eating here,” he declares.  Natasha gazes at him and she can see how hard he’s trying to keep himself from raising his voice. 

The smaller receptionist gazes up at Steve and Natasha senses some sort of spell might have been broken.  This man might be one of the many who have drawn up a false image of Steve Rogers being some sort of golden boy.  He’s perhaps one of the most—if not the most—honorable man she’s ever met, but even he has his limits.  If she had given the receptionist a fright, Steve seems to have all but petrified him.

The receptionist’s hand reaches for a phone and thrusts it between him and Steve.  “D-do you want call the police, or should I?” he challenges through an unsteady voice.  “I like you, Mr. Rogers.  You’re my kid’s favorite superhero, but we’re not serving _her_.”

By the man’s tone, it must have been really hard for him not to use a different pronoun.  Would “it” have been less hurtful than “murderer”?

Not in the mood for any further conflict, Natasha grabs Steve’s arm lightly.  “ _Let’s go, Steve_ ,” she urges him in Russian.  She might have been joking at one point about his fluency, but right now she is praying that he understands her.  “ _This place isn’t worth it._ ”

Steve breathes hard, but soon turns around and heads out the door.  Natasha stays behind a moment to give the receptionist one last cold look.  Her eyes flick downward briefly and has to stifle a smirk at seeing a steadily worsening dampness in his pants. 

It’s certainly not the first time she made a man wet himself. 

Without another look, she follows Steve out the door.  He stands not far off, staring out into the city.

“I’m sorry, Nat,” he apologizes hopelessly. 

She frowns up at him as she stands beside him.  “For what?"

Steve shakes his head.  “Maybe I am just old-fashioned, but all I wanted to do tonight was take a gorgeous woman out to a lovely dinner and not only show her a good time, but also show her that at least _I_ think she’s special.”

Rather than thank him for the sentiment, Natasha slips her arm around his.  “We may not have gotten to eat where we wanted to, but would it make you feel better if that woman told you that so far you were doing a great job?”

Steve glances down at her and she meets his gaze with a toothy smile. 

“The night is still young,” she points out, walking backwards as she steps away from him.  She holds out her hand.  “Come with me.”

Steve’s gaze shifts from her eyes to her hand and back again. 

“Don’t you trust me, Steve?” she teases, but her heart is racing. 

Eventually that award-winning smile of his spreads across his face.  He reaches out and takes her hand.  “ _With my life_ ,” he swears in Russian. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this has been extended...again. But if you are all enjoying this story, please bear with me. In many ways this is a first date for them both, so there are going to be some bumps.
> 
> And as always, comments are welcome.


	4. Chapter Four

“How can you not like _Star Wars_?” demands Natasha between bites of rice. 

Steve can’t fight back his smile.  He felt bad enough about not being able to see his dinner plans through.  Though he understood, it still infuriates him that they couldn’t eat dinner where he had planned to take her.

Natasha is a complicated woman who has spent years perfecting the art of deceit.  They brought up with each other not long ago on a road trip to the abandoned Army camp where he became a soldier and he remembers the conversation vividly.

_“You know it’s kind of hard to trust someone when you don’t know who that someone really is,” Steve pointed out, taking his eyes off the road momentarily.  She had been talking about lying in such a casual manner.  He didn’t want to voice it, but he wondered if her wry sense of humor was a defense mechanism._

_“Yeah,” agreed Natasha after a moment’s silence.  Steve’s attention was only partially focused on her face, but he could see those emerald orbs glittering a little.  “Who do you want me to be?”_

How about the real you? _Steve thought.  Instead he asked, “How about a friend?”_

_The redhead laughed dryly.  “Well there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers.”_

_He smirked at her.  He thought that that was debatable._

Sometimes he thinks that his date is quite literally a Russian doll.  He peels away one layer only to find another one underneath and it becomes that much harder to unlock the mystery that is Natasha Romanov.  There’s something wildly intoxicating about a woman who is a mystery. 

Steve’s memories of playing the third (or fourth) wheel when hanging out with Bucky growing up usually featured women that he thought were pretty shallow.  As the America entered the war, men quickly traded their suits for military uniforms.  The women he was exposed to most of the time flocked around soldiers like…groupies. 

Steve isn’t sure if that is the proper word.

In his life, Peggy Carter was the first women he met who didn’t seem shallow.  The sad reality is that he never truly got to know Peggy Carter.  All he knew was the lovely British intelligence liaison assigned to his base and eventually to his unit.  Who was Peggy Carter?  Who was the woman who loved to dance, yet was waiting for the right partner? 

True or not, Steve would daresay he knows more about Natasha than he ever knew about Peggy. 

One of the things that he can say about Natasha as of an hour ago is that he doesn’t need to make a serious effort where she is concerned.  He already tried courting her the way he would have in 1945, but things are vastly different from that time period.

But seriously, why is it so much harder to find a lovely restaurant where there’s a live big band and a dance floor?  One way or another, Steve is going to take this redhead dancing at some point.  He will probably make a fool of himself as his dancing skills are as good as they were seventy years ago, but does he really need to be an excellent dancer to have a good time?

He let Natasha lead him along and eventually, after rounding a corner, she led him to a place called Bibibop.  The forties man in him felt that the hastily prepared food was inelegant, but he couldn’t argue with the smells.  Since he came out of the ice, he had never actually been to a fast food joint.  There was that ruined shawarma place that he, Natasha, and the rest of the Avengers went to after the battle of New York, but that’s about it. 

He let Natasha order for him.  Afterwards, they decided to sit at one of the boots while they ate.  Eventually, Natasha started asking him about some of the things he has crossed off on his bucket list. 

 _Star Wars_ included. 

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t think it was very good movie,” Steve apologizes as he tries to figure out how to use his chopsticks.  He’s been trying to copy Natasha’s grip on the annoying things.  She’s left-handed though. 

“Steve, _Star Wars_ is iconic!” she argues.  “Epic space battles, blaster rifles, lightsabers, Darth Vader, the _Millennium Falcon_ …”

“Such a poorly designed ship.”

“Oh yeah?”

“The cockpit was so far off to the side, don’t you think that that would make a horrible blind spot?” asks Steve.  “And those bigger one, the star destroyers?  Being flying objects, you’d think that there would be weapons on the bottom as well as the top?  The Project Insight helicarriers were better designed than them!”

Natasha grumbles as she takes a sip of Diet Coke.  “Yeah, but they weren’t space-worthy.”

“And then there’s Chewbacca…”

“Wait a minute,” Natasha cuts him off dangerously.  “What the hell is wrong with Chewbacca?”

“His voice was irritating,” Steve replies flatly.  “He does all of that growling and howling and we’re all just supposed to guess what the hell he’s saying?  And he looked ridiculous.”  He can’t tell what’s more terrifying—the way her eyes have him gripped in a stranglehold so tight that he wouldn’t dare look away, or the way she looks like she could kill him with her chopsticks without batting an eyelash. 

He can’t contain himself anymore.  Giggles bubble out of him and he has to cover his mouth. 

For a second Natasha doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening, but then her scowl darkens.  “You’re shitting me, aren’t you, Rogers?”

His giggles escalate into laughter and her scowls only make it worse.  She kicks him from under the booth with a pointed three-inch heel.  It actually hurts a little, but Steve is too busy laughing to be concerned about the bruise that will be there for an hour or two. 

“What were you going to do, skewer me with your chopsticks?” he asks between laughs.

“So you actually _did_ enjoy the movie?” asks Natasha, her voice dripping with annoyance. 

“It’s not a movie I see myself watching over and over again,” explains Steve.  “I haven’t even watched any of the sequels.”  Natasha rolls her eyes.  “But I did like Chewie.  Being one of the first films I watched since I came out of the ice, the cinematography blew my mind.  And I thought that Darth Vader seemed like a shrewd villain.  I just didn’t think that that it was a well-written movie.”

“Well, if you don’t plan on watching the rest of the movies, you won’t mind me spoiling his whole story to you?” the redhead challenges.

He almost replies with _be my guest_ , but then he truly looks at her face.  That challenging stare is a little unsettling.  The smirk upon her rosy lips is so evil; they are daring him to say yes. 

“Is it really that iconic?” he finally asks.

“It’s probably one of the reasons why he’s considered one of the best movie characters ever made,” whispers Natasha.  It almost sounds like a purr.

Steve rolls his eyes.  “Fine, then movie night will be a Star Wars marathon.”

“Count on it, soldier.”  Her eyes move downward a little.  “Do you want me to show you how to use those chopsticks?”

A sigh of defeat escapes Steve’s lips.  For the most part, he’s been eating his meal with a plastic fork, but also has tried a few times to use his chopsticks.  He answers with a simple, “Yes.”  He watches as the woman rises from her seat across from him and comes up next to him.  With a delicate hand, she takes his hand and the chopsticks with her other hand.

 “Basically, you hold them like you would a pencil.  Take this one and put it between those two fingers.”  She takes one of the chopsticks and places it between his middle and ring fingers.  “And then the other one, you hold it like you would a pencil.”  She places other one in his hand.  “Chop, chop,” she says.  Steve follows suit with a movement of the chopsticks.  “See, it’s easy.”

Steve turns towards her and his breath hitches as he registers just how close she is.  She must realize it too as they lock eyes.  “Hi,” he breathes, his voice coming out in halting breaths.  Wistfully, he wonders how bad his breath might be.

“ _Hey_ ,” she replies.  At least that’s what Steve thought he heard, but it might have been something in Russian.  He doesn’t know why he’s been speaking Russian with her.  A part of him is worried it might have been too forward.  He did learn a little Russian in the war, but also taught himself the language while working for S.H.I.E.L.D.  Also, it’s possible that he just wanted to hear Natasha speak her native language. 

He does love the way it sounds coming from her. 

Ever so slowly, the distance between them closes.  Their lips meet with the softest of touches, it might never have happened at all.  Almost as quickly as it began though, it ends and their eyes lock again. 

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable,” whispers Steve.

“ _Da_ ,” she agrees. 

Steve smirks.  “Are you still uncomfortable, Romanov?”

The woman seems to snap back to reality as her signature scowl crosses her features.  She stubs his toe with her heel as she walks back to her chair.

“I didn’t stub _your_ toe when you asked me that question,” Steve reminds her, wincing as he flexes his toes.

“That’s because you know I can kill you ten different ways with my pinky,” quips Natasha. 

“And how many more times should I expect you to hurt me this evening?”

The woman smiles with a suggestive wink.  “That’s entirely up to you, _krasivyy_.”  

They soon finish their meals and prepare to head out.  It’s completely dark out by now and the only illumination comes from the lights of passing cars, stores that are still open, and landmarks that might be preparing to close. 

As they walk south with arms linked, Steve takes a moment to gaze at the looming structure of Capital One Arena to his left.  He had never been to a hockey game.  Baseball was his sport.  To his right, the National Portrait Gallery stands magnificently, a building with similar architectural influences as many buildings in the city.     

It’s one of the places he has been meaning to visit, but hasn’t had the opportunity yet. He would very much like to take Natasha there at some point if she is up for it.

“What was Stalingrad like?” asks Steve, attempting to make conversation. 

The question seems to catch her off-guard.  “I’m sorry?”

“You told me once that you were born in Stalingrad, what was it like?”

Natasha seems to drift off to a faraway place as she contemplates her answer.  “I…it’s been a very long time since I’ve been back to that city.  I haven’t even been to Stalingrad since it was still Stalingrad.  Stalin wasn’t my personal favorite Soviet leader, but coming from a Russian, I resent Khrushchev renaming it Volgograd.”  She says the name like it has a sour taste in her mouth.  “I mean, should Richmond, Virginia be renamed because it was once the capital of the American Confederacy?”

Steve doesn’t answer. 

“Sorry, for that off-topic comment.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” he assures her.  “So, were you just a kid when you were in Stalingrad last?”

“My clearest memory of Stalingrad was the Battle of Stalingrad.”  That faraway look returns again.  When the Nazis reached Stalingrad, the Black Widow program was relocated to a remote facility farther inland.  Stalin was determined to have his perfect Black Widow.  Of course, when you ‘died’ my original purpose became moot.  I just ended up being the K.G.B.’s hit woman.”

“Have you ever thought about going back?”  Now that he asks, Steve wonders if it might have been one of the places who would have considered hiding.  Ask him, there’s something oddly clever about going back to your roots when trying to hide, or to reinvent yourself.  Besides living expenses, Steve has sometimes found himself coming face to face with an emotional wall when he considers the idea of finding a place in Brooklyn.

“I have,” admits Natasha.  “I’ve been to Russia few times for assignment, but never to Volgograd.  I daresay that my family home doesn’t even exist anymore.  What about you, have you been back to Brooklyn?”

He should have seen that one coming.  “I have,” he replies distantly.  “It’s where Fury found me.  The residential building I grew up in no longer exists.  It was condemned and eventually torn down back in the 1997.  I haven’t exactly been back to that neighborhood.  And I haven’t even revisited my mother’s grave.”

“Why not?” her tone is so tender, he wants to hug her. 

Steve sighs heavily.  “I chose to become part of a program that turned me into…this.  I never gave much thought as to what I’d do when the war ended.  I envy you, Natasha.”

The woman narrows her eyes at him.  “Me?” she repeats.  “I’m sorry, Steve, but I’m not sure there’s anything about me worth envying.  If anything, _I_ envy _you_.”

Steve does see why she would be saying that.  “I envy you because as the world changed, you got to live through it.  I slept through it.”

Natasha scoffs.  “I’m not sure if what all I did could be considered ‘living’.  I envy you because you chose to be what you are.  You were chosen because you’re an honorable man.  I am what I am today because I was the most monstrous.  I survived and I left a trail of blood in the wake of it.  And before you tell me that you’ve also got blood on your hands, tell me, have you ever killed a child, or physically harmed them in order to get someone to cooperate?”

Steve’s expression hardens as memories of the war resurface in his mind.  “You’ll never find any record of it, but back in 1944, the Howling Commandos and I were in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.  There was a detachment of HYDRA soldiers and we were deployed.  By that time in the war, both Hitler and Schmidt had grown desperate.”  He gazes up at the night sky thoughtfully.  “Come to think of it, the Nazis and the Allies had a common enemy in HYRDA, yet we never worked together.  Even when we found ourselves working in tandem, we still shot at each other.  Anyway, back to the point, we got the town where HYRDA was guarding one of their facilities.  We defeated them within an hour.

“It was by accident, but my shield had knocked off one of the soldier’s masks off.”  Steve closes his eyes.  “The boy couldn’t have been any older than thirteen.  We went through the rest of them and all of them were children.  Some of them still had a few baby teeth.”  He locks eyes with Natasha.  “When I filled out my report, I was told to revise it.  They wanted to sweep it all under the rug.  Not for the first time, I was threatened with disciplinary action.  Still, I refused to revise my report.

“My men and I each probably went almost three days without being able to sleep,” explains Steve.  “It was one of those times that made all of us truly wonder who the good guys in the war were.”

Natasha squeezes his arm affectionately.  “If you ask me, when it comes to war, no one is a good guy.  Each side is going to think their cause is righteous and the enemy’s cause is wrong.  Even if you don’t commit a war crime, no matter what flag is on your uniform, there’s always going to be blood on your hands you wish wasn’t there.”

A smile finds its way onto Steve’s face.  Those words do send a surge of warmth through him.  “When did you get so wise?”

“I lived through all those years, remember?” she reminds him with a smirk.

Steve laughs and she joins him.  It’s a sound he doesn’t hear too often from her.  The fact that she’s laughing with him makes him very happy.  Whether she chooses to see it or not, Natasha is a human being and it seems that she feels comfortable enough with him to show that version of her. With the other Avengers, or even when they were with S.H.I.E.L.D. working counter-terrorism with each other, she was more reserved.  She might have been cheeky, even flirty with him in their presence, but as he thinks about him, she didn’t express those same emotions with others. 

Guys like Rumlow might have said something suggestive to her once or twice, but generally everyone is either too afraid of her or they dismiss her as having an androgynous personality. 

Steve doesn’t see that kind of woman in her.  They are close to the National Mall.  They just have to pass Pennsylvania Avenue and then another small block.  Even from here, the National Mall is a magnificent spectacle.  Steve remembers overhearing a child at the Smithsonian, probably a tourist visiting Washington for the first time, asking her father if the “National Mall” was in fact a shopping mall.  The city has a few shopping malls, but the National Mall isn’t one of them.

After having been to Europe where there was so much, and probably still is, plenty of untamed forestry, Steve has come to dislike some of the cultivated and carefully maintained greenery of places like the National Mall and Central Park.  He’s a city boy through and through.  The isolation of a country setting would eventually drive him crazy.

Still, the long strip of grass, pathways, silhouetted by trees with the Capital on one end and the Washington Monument on the other is a true spectacle.  They are both buildings with so much history behind them.  Steve personally feels that the Capital offers much more to see than the Washington Monument.  The latter offered a view of the whole city at the top, but there’s not much else to it.

Washington is not a city with an abundance of skyscrapers, so the Washington Monument is an interesting spectacle.  Steve can recall days when the weather was rainy and half the structure would be missing beneath a shroud of mist.  

Between those two landmarks as well as other landmarks, is a thing of beauty and the landmarks might as well be ornaments on a nearly two-mile strip of nature.  To Steve, it pales in comparison to Central Park, but the National Mall takes the cake in its number of landmarks.  Even so, he can jog or walk all the way around it without ever visiting one of the landmarks and still enjoy himself. 

Steve would like know more about some of the landmarks in Volgograd that are worth seeing.  Since Natasha hasn’t been back there in so long, she might not know much about its landmarks any more than he does.  If they were to ever have a proper vacation, Volgograd will definitely be on the list of places to go.  If things go _really_ well, she might even show him other places to see in Russia. 

It’s such a big country.  There are only so many places worth seeing it would take a lifetime to see them all.  America shares that quality, in Steve’s opinion, but it’s a smaller country.  Russia might take _two_ lifetimes, if not more. 

“Steve,” says Natasha, her grip on him tightening.

He snaps out of his thoughts.  “What’s the matter?”

“ _We’re being followed_ ,” she informs him in Russian.  “Just keep walking.” 

Steve obeys, but he also goes rigid.

“Turn here,” instructs Natasha.  They turn into an alleyway.  Not long after that, Steve hears the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. 

“Stop right there,” says a male voice. 

Steve and Natasha stop in their tracks and share an annoyed look.  Steve could say that Natasha’s look says “I told you so.”

“What can we do for you tonight, sir?” he asks without turning around.  He takes the opportunity to surreptitiously reach into Natasha’s handbag as she just as sneakily lifts it up to him.  Within, he does indeed find a knife and grabs it. 

“Turn around slowly,” replies their assailant.

Rolling his eyes, Steve turns around with Natasha.  Their eyes fall on a buff guy with a hoodie drawn low, obscuring much of his face in the lackluster light.  He looks far from dangerous and based on the way he grips that nine-millimeter handgun, he doesn’t look like a professional. 

“Would you mind lowering that gun?” asks Steve.

The man raises the gun further.  “Steve Rogers, right?” he asks.  “Step away from the woman.”

Steve scowls.  “I’m sorry, but that’s not going to happen.”

The man grumbles.  “I have no quarrel with you, Captain Rogers.”

“And what’s your quarrel with this woman?” asks Steve reasonably.  “Has she done something to you?  Nat, do you know this man?”

Natasha shakes her head.  “I’ve never met this guy.”

“Why are you defending this woman?” asks the man.  “Haven’t you read any of those files that were released on the internet?”

“Not really,” replies Steve truthfully.  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Natasha gape at him.  “And I don’t plan to.  I’m well aware she has a shady past, but if you knew my past, you might have a very different image than what the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian offers.  Right now, I’m trying to enjoy a date with this woman, so how about we all just walk away peacefully?”

The man doesn’t budge. 

“Surely, I don’t have to remind you that either one of us can beat you in a fight with our eyes closed?” adds Steve.

“Screw it,” the man raises the gun to shoot, but Steve is faster.  He throws the knife and it lands sickeningly in his hand just before he actually squeezes the trigger.  The gun falls from his hand and it discharges as it bounces on the ground.

Someone is going to respond to that fairly soon, so Steve and Natasha better clear out.  But Steve has something to do first.  He approaches the man and leans down to face him as he falls to his knees.  He grabs the knife and removes it from his hand, not too gently. 

“I like this woman, a lot,” he tells the man coldly.  “Let that wound on your hand be a reminder of what could happen next time you or somebody you know decides to aim a gun at her.  Get out of here.” 

The man stumbles out of the alley while nursing his injured hand. 

“Do you think he’s going to report that?” asks Natasha.

“No,” replies Steve. 

“So, you like me, huh?” the redhead teases.

Steve glances down at her.  “Should I let you decide what we do on a date next time?”

She raises an eyebrow.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, but I think that it would be good for us to take turns.”

Natasha laughs again.  “You’re such a gentleman.”

“I try to be,” admits Steve.  He offers him arm again.  “Take a walk with me?”

The woman rolls her eyes as she wraps her hand around his arm.  Together they walk to the National Mall.

This date might not have turned out the way Steve wanted it to, but he’s willing to have a thousand botched dates as long as they are all with Natasha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how was my debut?
> 
> Let me know in the comments. I'd really like to continue writing this pairing. And this might be the beginning of a series, so let me know what you'd all like to see happen next.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work in this fandom, so I apologize for any OOC-ness. Feedback/constructive criticism/tips are welcome.


End file.
